Newsroom

Update

Last Sunday, President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka announced a two-day pause in offensive operations against the opposition Tamil Tigers, in observance of the Sinhala/Tamil New Year.  Over 150,000 Tamil civilians are trapped with the Tigers in a government-declared "safe zone" - a small pocket of coastal land in northeastern Sri Lanka which is the only remaining territory controlled by the Tigers.  The Tigers won't let the civilians leave and have shot and killed those trying to flee the area.  Both the Sri Lankan army and the Tigers have shelled the civilians; hundreds have died since the start of this year. …

April 14, 2009

Update

At one point in My Cousin Vinny, Vinny Gambini  (Joe Pesci, down in Alabama from Brooklyn to defend his cousins in a capital murder case) decides to go hunting with the prosecutor, in the hopes of maybe sweet talking him into getting a peek at his files.  When Vinny returns from the trip, he proudly tells his girlfried (Marisa Tomei) that the prosecutor agreed to Xerox and send over every single file he had on the case.  Marisa Tomei is not impressed; the prosecutor has to give him the files … “It’s called discovery, #$%^&^$%!” she concludes.  (She won an…

April 14, 2009

Update

By Cheney that is. Last Friday, the Obama administration turned to the "dark-side" yet again, and appealed a district court ruling that would give detainees in Afghanistan a chance to challenge their detention before a judge. The Justice Department also went on to ask the judge to halt proceedings on three other habeas corpus cases. This wasn't the first time we'd seen this from the Obama administration. Back in February, the Justice Department announced it would no longer use the term "enemy combatant", which sounds great!, until you hear the part about them saying that despite this change, they still…

April 14, 2009

Update

Yesterday, The Washington Post published an article highlighting the opening of Guatemala's police archives. The archives -- which contain documentation of Guatemala's internal armed conflict that killed approximately 200,000 people -- could provide long awaited justice to families who never got answers about disappearances and murders of their loved ones. The article continues with a comment from Amnesty International: "I don't think anyone truly believed this day would come," said Barbara Bocek, the Guatemala country specialist for Amnesty International USA. "It's an incredible achievement, especially for Guatemala. In other countries these records would be buried underground, shredded, destroyed." However, AI has expressed…

April 13, 2009

Update

It is Monday, March 16, 2009. These two lawyers are dancing in celebration outside the home of  Iftikhar Chaudhry , Chief Justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court. Why? Because Chaudhry, who had been suspended in March 2007 by then president Pervez Musharraf, has finally been reinstated by the government. Chaudhry had become an embarrassment to Musharraf's government. Among his inconvenient rulings: he ordered the country's Intelligence agency to admit that it was holding secret prisoners. Musharraf finally had had enough. He dismissed the Supreme Court and placed the judges under house arrest. Luckily our president can't dismiss the Supreme Court.…

April 11, 2009

Update

Torture can't happen without doctors. The point of torture is not to kill. As a former CIA lawyer once said, "If a detainee dies, you're doing it wrong." The point of torture is to inflict pain. And only doctors can determine how to suffocate without drowning, how to beat without doing too much damage, how to torment without killing. How horrifying to read "Health Provision and Role of Medical Staff" in the recently leaked International Committee of the Red Cross report (PDF) on the U.S. torture program: For certain methods, notably suffocation by water, the health personnel were allegedly directly…

April 10, 2009

Update

That sign says it all.  As you cross this bridge entering tribal land and tribal jurisdiction, this is the only indication you’ll have.  While it may seem insignificant to the regular driver cruising U.S. highway 1806, this sign along with many other border points along the Reservation is where the maze of injustice begins for the women of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation. For the last three years, I’ve been the Amnesty International organizer working in this community in partnership with local Native women to accomplish our Maze of Injustice report goals.  As I travel around the Reservation over the…

April 10, 2009

Update

Delara Darabi faces imminent execution.  Like many sentenced to death in Iran, she was convicted of a crime committed when she was a child.  Almost no other country in the world executes juvenile offenders, yet Iran has put 16 of them to death since the beginning of 2007.  Iran’s death row continues to house scores of young men and women facing the noose for crimes that took place when they were under 18 years old.  These include Abumoslem Sohrabi and Abbas Hosseini, whose executions may also be imminent. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child forbids the death…

April 10, 2009

Update

One of the side effects of our new social networking technology is we are getting to see human rights violations and the workings of security agencies occur in real time through tools such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  I've known that for some time, but the knowledge feels different when it's someone you have met who is affected. Laila el-Haddad is a Duke graduate and Gaza activist.  She lives most of the time in Gaza but has returned to Duke on several occasions to talk about the Middle East.  She was passing through Cairo's airport today on way to another…

April 9, 2009

Update

A few years ago, thanks to a grant from the former JEHT Foundation, I began working with the great Skylight Pictures on a short documentary film for Amnesty members.  The film was envisioned as a tool to help our members better understand international justice through the stories of the survivors and human rights defenders who are pursuing such cases. Thanks to their work on the internationally acclaimed State of Fear, Skylight had developed strong relationships with families and activists in Peru involved in the case against former President Alberto Fujimori, and so suggested that we feature the campaign to bring Fujimori to justice as one of the film's three story segments. I…

April 8, 2009

Update

Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) received a number of letters about our recent action asking the State Department why they allowed a massive shipment of arms to Israel despite clear evidence of Israel violating international law during the recent Gaza conflict.  We thought it might be useful to publish anonymously some of these letters, along with our response, so readers could better understand why we’re promoting such an action. I think Amnesty International also needs to determine if arms shipments to Israeli may be a response to the ongoing policy of Hamas. The policy includes provocative shelling of Israeli communities and…

April 8, 2009

Update

The stars appear to be aligning. Yesterday, for the first time, a state legislature voted to allow same-sex marriage. Vermont joined Connecticut, Massachusetts, and recently Iowa, in recognizing marriage equality. But unlike those states that overturned the ban on same-sex marriage through judicial establishment of constitutional protections, Vermont's voter-elected representatives made the historic move. And they did it with enough support to overwhelm Governor Jim Douglas' veto. All this happened while the Washington D.C. city council voted unanimously to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Those of us who believe in marriage equality are feeling pretty good. Just don't…

April 8, 2009